#### Principle 1 - Metalearning: First Draw a Map * Break down metalarning research through three questions: * Why? * Contact skilled mentors. * What? * Establish key concepts. * Write down memorizable facts. * Write down practicable procedures. * Highlight the most challenging concepts, facts and procedures to start the base of your Map. * How? * Benchmark ways in which people learn the skill/subject. * Use the Emphasize/Exclude Method to align your study with your goals. * Invest 10% of your time in research prior to starting the project. #### Principle 2 - Focus: Sharpen Your Knife * Three problems one can run into while trying to learn: * Failing to start focusing/procrastinating. * Failing to sustain focus. * Distractions include: * Your Environment. * The Task at hand. (It may be more challenging) * Your Mind. * Failing to create the right kind of focus. * Design focuses on par to the task at hand. #### Principle 3 - Directness: Go Straight Ahead * Directness is the hallmark of most ultralarning projects. * It is important to be direct. * Transfer happens when something is learned in one context, and can be applied to a real life situation. * Directness solves the problem of transferring in two ways: * If the skill is learned with a direct connection to the area in which you will eventually apply to the skill. * Transfer helps with new situations, * Ultralearners remove transferring by directly doing tasks. * The structures of our knowledge start out brittle, welded to the environments and contexts we learn them in. * Tactics ultralearners use: * Project-based learning. * Immersive learning. * The flight simulator method. * The overkill approach. #### Principle 4 - Drill: Attack Your Weakest Point * Determine your weak point and start to change it. * Drills allow problems to be resolved by simplification and focusing of cognitive resources. * Good ways to do drills: * Time slicing * Isolate a slice in time of a longer sequence of actions. * Cognitive components * In place of practicing a slice in time, practice multiple components of cognitive aspects. * Copying * You can practice on part of the skill you don’t want to drill, thus focusing solely on fixing one component. * Magnifying Glass Method. * This is used to practice one part and spend more time on this component of the skill than you would otherwise. * Prerequisite chaining. * Ultralearners start with a skill that they don;t have all the prerequisites for, when they do poorly, they go back a step, in order to learn the foundational topics. #### Principle 5 - Retrieval: Test to Learn * Retrieval practices are best for keeping memory stored in the long-run. * The more difficult retrieval, the better learning experiences. * The testing effect: * Those who do repeated reviewing predicted better results. * Recalling gives the best results in memory. * Ways to practice retrieval: * Flash cards. * Simple, but very effective. * They work well for only a specific type of retrieval. * Recalling. * Write down everything you can remember. * Question-book method. * Rephrase notes in order to remember them better. * Self-generated challenges. * This is useful when trying to learn a new skill. * Closed-book learning. * Any learning activity can become an opportunity for retrieval if the ability to search for hints is cut off. * More difficult retrieval leads to better learning. * The research shows if you need to recall something later, you’re best off practicing retrieving it. * Direct practice can help with retrieval, but cannot be used by itself. * Retrieval can be unclear on how to accomplish it. #### Principle 6 - Feedback: Don’t Dodge the Punches * Feedback is one of the most consistent aspects of the strategy ultralearners use. * Types of feedback: * Outcome feedback * Informs you of how well you are doing overall. * Offers no ideas as to what can be better. * Informational feedback * Informs you of what is being done wrong. * This does not inform you of what must be changed. * Corrective feedback * This shows you what is being done incorrectly, and how to fix it. * It is usually available through: * Mentor * Coach * Teacher * Immediate feedback has proven to be more effective and superior. * Ways to get better feedback: * Noise cancellation * Noise is random factors which should not be taken into account. * Find the ideal difficulty spot on constructive feedback. * Feedback is information, more of which equals more opportunities to learn. * Metafeedback * This feedback is about evaluating the overall success of the strategy. * High-intensity, Rapid Feedback. * Sometimes the best way to improve feedback is simply by getting larger amounts of feedback, much quicker. * Feedback is dependent on the type of feedback given, #### Principle 7 - Retention: Don’t Fill a Leaky Bucket * Theories of forgetting: * Decay - Forgetfulness with passing of time. * Forgetting is an inevitable erosion of time. * Interference - the replacing of old memories with new ones. * This suggests our memories overlap with one another in how they are sorted by the brain. * Memories that are similar but distinct can compete with one another. * Inaccessible memory cue * This theory suggests memories are not forgotten, but merely inaccessible. Like a key lost to a locked box. * Theories of remembering: * Spacing - repeating inorder to remember. * This is best supported by research, this states that spreading study sessions over longer periods of time can help with remembering them in the long run. * Proceduralization - an automatic will to endure. * Procedural skills are stored in a different way from declarative knowledge. * Procedural skills are less susceptible to being forgotten than knowledge that requires explicit recall to retrieve. * Overlearning - practice beyond the point of perfection. * Additional practice - beyond what is required to perform adequately - can increase the length of time that memories are stored. * Mnemonics * These tend to be hyper-specific. * Involve translation of abstract or arbitrary information into vivid pictures or spatial maps. * Powerful tool, however, can be very brittle. #### Principle 8 - Intuition: Dig Deep Before Building Up * How to build intuition: * Oftentimes people are incapable of applying memorized solutions to particular problems. * Don’t give up on difficult problems easily. * One way to achieve this slightly better is by applying a study timer to allow yourself to try and figure out difficult problems. * Prove things in order to understand them. * Do not just master things by following along, but find the root of the concept. * Start with a concrete example. * Humans do not learn well in abstract. * Concrete examples will allow fluidity after having learned them. * Don’t think you know more than you do. * Be skeptical of your own understanding. * Where to apply the Feynman Technique: * For things you do not understand in the slightest. * Problems you are incapable of solving. * Expansion of your intuition. #### Principle 9 - Experimentation: Explore Outside Your Comfort Zone * Experimentation holds the key to mastering. * Types of experimentation: * Experimenting with learning resources. * This is useful in helping one discover the guides and resources that work the best for you. * It is important to let your impulse to experiment match your impulse to work. * Experimenting with technique. * Focuses on materials in the beginning, transitions to a more advanced form of learning. * Experimenting with style. * Develop a different way of studying. * Be aware of all the styles that exist, and base a style off of your analyses. * How to experiment: * Copy and then create. * Compare methods. * Introduce new constraints. * Find what you are exceptionally good at in the hybrid of unrelated skills. * Explore the most extremes of the dimensions of the skill.